


Chemistry

by wowbright



Series: Fidelity Series [3]
Category: Glee
Genre: Baking, Cookies, Gen, Science, solar ovens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-28 16:50:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5098046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wowbright/pseuds/wowbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When I was writing <em>Fidelity</em>, I mentioned David Karofsky’s great aunt several times, but so peripherally I doubt anyone other than me noticed. I have a whole headcanon for their relationship. Here is some of it. Warnings for shmoop and original-character death. Dave is the only canon character in this ficlet.</p><p>Originally posted on <a href="http://wowbright.tumblr.com/post/64726210689/fic-fidelity-deleted-scene-chemistry">tumblr</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chemistry

When Dave was little, he used to spend afternoons at his great aunt’s house embarking on various science experiments. She’d been an aeronautical engineer before she retired, and loved math and the sky and using one’s hands to create beauty. Being near her made him fall in love with all of those things, too.

Among his favorite projects were the various solar ovens they built to take advantage of the Arizona sun. The first few were from plans they got from magazines. “Measure this,” she’d say, and he’d get out the yardstick and follow her instructions, and then she’d show him how to multiply one number by another to figure out how much aluminum foil or cardboard they needed, and she’d hug him whenever he got the answer right – and often when he got it wrong, too.  
The first few ovens were good for roasting hot dogs and slow-cooking stews, but they were terrible at actually baking anything. Dave found this to be a great disappointment. He had a sweet tooth and didn’t think an oven was worth much if you couldn’t make cookies in it.

So when he started to understand better how it all worked, they started to make adjustments to get the ovens hotter and help them hold steadier temperatures. Most of the ideas were probably his aunt’s, but she always made him feel like an important part of the discovery.

The first cookies they made in a solar oven were half-baked and doughy. In other words, they were the best cookies Dave had ever had. They started making them at least once a week.

“Why do cookies usually end up better than the stuff you put in them?” he asked her once after eating a spoonful of baking powder just to see what it would taste like, and regretting the decision sorely.

“Because love is the secret ingredient,” she said, cracking an egg into a bowl and handing it off to him to stir.

“I think you’re making that up,” he said. He wasn’t positive she was making up, but it sounded an awful lot like something they would say in a fairy tale. You know, add a dash of love and a splash of friendship to the stone soup and soon it will be hearty enough to feed the whole town. Everyone knows that the stone soup only became edible because people kept throwing vegetables in it.

She tilted her head to the side. “Yes and no,” she said.

“Well,” he said, “I tried making cookies with my mom this weekend and we burned them so bad we had to throw them all out. I love my mom, but those cookies sucked.”

She laughed. “You’re smarter than I give you credit for, kid,” she said, and leaned forward conspiratorially. “So you want to know the whole truth?”

He nodded his head earnestly.

“Have you ever heard of chemistry?”

“I think it’s a kind of science?” he said.

“Yup. Well, when you put different kinds of things together, they affect each other. Sometimes, they change each other so much that you can’t even recognize what each of them started out as.”

“Why?” he said.

So, over the next several months, she explained to him about atoms and molecules; elements and compounds; gases, liquids and solids. He didn’t always understand what she was talking about, but he liked that she talked to him like he was a grown-up.

Later, when she got sick, he went to visit her in the hospital with his parents. Even though she was too weak to sit up in her bed, she somehow managed to shoo them out. “David,” she said. “Do you remember what I told you the first time you asked why our cookies always turned out so good?”

Dave nodded. “That love is the secret ingredient,” he said. “But it’s not true.” He started to cry a little, because he didn’t like to think about a time when she thought he was too young to hear the truth, but also because she looked more tired than he’d ever seen her.

“Well,” she said. “It’s partly true. I told you it was love because I wasn’t sure how to explain all the details to you. But the thing is, David, love is a lot like chemistry.”

Dave shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

She took his hand. The little machine by the side of her bed made a beeping noise. “So you know that when two or more atoms combine, they become something different than what they were before, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Like, hydrogen is a gas, and oxygen is a gas. But when you put them together, they turn into water.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Well, that’s what love is like, too. I was kind of a different person before I met you. I was angry about some things, and I wasn’t enjoying life the way I should have. And then you came along, and you were curious about things that I used to be curious about, and you laughed at things that I had forgotten were funny, and I started to change. I became something better than I was before, because I love you.”

Dave wasn’t sure if he understood, but he thought he might later, if he thought about it long enough. “That’s good, right?” he said, because she was smiling with such tenderness that he thought it must be. But she was also crying, so it was hard to tell.

“It’s the best thing there is,” she said. They hugged each other for a long time until they were both done crying.

“I love you,” he said when they let each other go. He had never said it to her before, but it seemed important to say it now.

She kissed his forehead. “I love you, too, David,” she said. “I hope you’ll always know that.”

“I know,” he said. “I won’t forget.”

It was the last time he saw her but, all things considered, it was a good last time.


End file.
